Why did the USSR sign an agreement with National Socialist Germany rather than Great Britain and France in August 1939?

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Martin Vaivods

0431-044

IBH History

Why did the USSR sign an agreement with National Socialist Germany rather than Great Britain and France in August 1939?


A. Plan of Investigation

As the Great Purges were nearing an end Stalin had gained more freedom to pursue foreign policy goals, as internal opposition had been dealt with. In 1939, the USSR was having simultaneous talks of a possible political military alliance with the British and the French on one hand and Nazi Germany on the other. This investigation seeks to determine why Stalin’s Soviet Union chose to side with the Germans, who’s fascist ideology, was seemingly incompatible with the Soviet ideology of Communism. Firstly this investigation will seek to establish Stalin’s foreign policy objectives in the late 1930s, and then it will go on to determine, why an agreement with Germany was best suited to fulfill these objectives. The primary time frame that this investigation will consider will span from the Munich Conference in September 1938, to the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939.

        

Word Count-144 words


B. Summary of Evidence

  • In 1936, during an interview Stalin stated that that the USSR does not have territorial ambitions.
  • Excerpts from contemporary Soviet literature:

‘We shall go to the Genghis river,

We will fall in fierce battles,

So from Japan to England,

Brightly can my homeland shine.’

-Pavel Kogan

‘There will be only a Soviet nation

And one – Soviet people.’

-Mikhail Kulchitsky

  • In the late 1930s Stalin declared a European War to be inevitable, ‘expecting his country to enter it late and on the winning side’.

  • Germany and Russia had historically been allies in critical situations, such as Rapallo Treaty and military cooperation in the early 1930s.
  • In 1935 ‘France and the USSR signed a pact of mutual aid and assistance aimed at Germany’ in case of an offensive on Czechoslovakia.
  • Stalin knew that he would never have to fulfill the agreement with France, as Romania and Poland would never allow passage to the Red Army.

  • In September 1938, Stalin was not invited to the Munich Conference, attended by leaders of France, Britain, Germany and Italy.
  • During the night of September 29th 1938, Stalin called a Politburo meeting upon hearing of the Munich agreement.
  • On his first visit to the German Secretary of State Weizscacker, the new Soviet Ambassador to Berlin, Merkalov was rebuked, as the Soviet press had made hostile comments towards Germany. Merekalov replied ‘These are not ideological differences’, referring to the entirely normal relations between he USSR and fascist Italy, ‘Surley our countries too can be on normal terms?’ 
  • People’s Commisaar of Foreign Affairs Maxim Litvinov and German Ambassador to Moscow, Schulenburg signed an agreement, which promised to halt any hostile comment in the mass media, in regard to Hitler and Stalin.
  • Soon the Jewish Maxim Litvinov was replaced by Vyatcheslav Molotov in the post of People’s Comissar of Foreign Affairs.
  • Against all expectation, Litvinov was not arrested. After Barbarossa, he was made the deputy to the People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs.
  • At the 1939 party congress Stalin spoke on foreign policy, he stated that by their policy of nonintervention [the French and the British] sought to involve Germany, Japan and the USSR in a war amongst themselves, from which they would benefit themselves.
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  • In 1939, British Prime Minister, Chamberlain promised protection to the Poles, in case of an attack.
  • In August 1939, on the incentive of the French, the British foreign secretary, Halifax proposed a loose alliance to the Soviet ambassador in London, Maisky. To which Maisky replied ‘The Soviet Union will look after its own security. To accept the ambiguous proposals of Britain would mean for us to lose freedom of action which would make war inevitable.’
  • The British then prepared for more serious talks in Moscow on August 15th.
  • On August 15th, the British delegation ...

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